Nightscrawlers

Quite a few of the New 52 are being written AND drawn by people who are traditionally artists only. Detective Comics is the first of those to hit the shelf, written and drawn by Tony S. Daniel.

Now, of course, you know that I'm obsessed with comic book writing, and some of my favorite books (Gaiman's Sandman, for example), depend much more heavily on the writing than the art. Obviously, I was pretty wary about this one, but I was determined to give it a shot.

It was worth it.Is it the most brilliant Batman story ever? Of course not. Is the writing amazing? Nope. Is the art good? All except for a single panel (you'll know it when you see it).

I know that, to most, the writing is going to be plenty good. And it's certainly a decent enough story. So if you're not as picky as I am about writing (and who is, really?) then you're probably going to enjoy this book.

It's told almost entirely through internal monologue caption boxes, which bothers me, but is par for the course in comics. It all makes sense, it follows and explains its own story well, but it's missing voice, it's missing rounded characters. It tells its story effectively, but it doesn't take that next step into greatness. There are a few moments where the fact that the same guy wrote and drew shines through in a pacing / clarity misstep (such as the "teeth incident"...you'll know it when you see it).

In short, it's Batman, Joker, Jim Gordon, and a big, juicy twist at the very end. It's worth the read, even if you're a cranky old man like me. It would have been served well with a decent co-writer, but having a single person write and draw doesn't prevent it from being good. It only prevents it from being great.

[Edited on 9-7-2011 by Crawler]

I too was pleasantly surprised. I wasn't expecting much, given that he's an artist primarily, but yeah, it was pretty decent, I thought. and the end! wow, I'm shocked DC allowed that, to be honest!

I'm told by a lot of people on twitter it was wildly inappropriate for young audiences and should've been on the same top shelf as 'Punisher MAX' and 'NEMESIS' my Mark Millar.

I can say this with complete confidence and sincerity: If someone, kid or not, can handle watching Nolan's The Dark Knight (and I think that there's a TON of kids that have seen that), then they can handle this book.

I think a whole lot of people these days wildly underestimate what kids can handle. But in any case, it was rated Teen, so kids shouldn't be reading it anyway.

I wasn't saying it as a criticism either, I think that's great if they take it to that dark place, but the level of gruesome, horribleness that was described to me sounds sorta Dark Knight but more borderline "Predators".

There's only one page that's questionable at all. And, like Bamfette said, it's clearly marked on the cover as being rated T for Teen, just like a video game. It's not aimed at kids, so it being inappropriate for kids is moot.

I will say about that page - that took BALLS. I am shocked DC allowed it, not because of the gore, but because it's the FUCKING JOKER!

This is the one where I'm most looking forward to the next issue. That was how I picked which books were best in my list: how much I want to read #2. If the writing was mediocre, I didn't notice.

I wonder if anything more is going to happen with the girl he rescued. She seemed like such an obvious plant, I'll be surprised if we don't see her again.

Too much gruesome horribleness?? It's Batman. What did you expect? BAM! and POW! camp from the 60s? Batman has been all about disturbing and horrible things for at least a couple decades now. The animated series traumatized the hell out of me when I was a kid and I kind of regretted watching The Dark Knight, which was way scarier than this.

[Edited on 10-9-2011 by The Drastic Spastic]

Draz> I originally was going to skip this completely because I only want to buy one Batman book and I'm totally gay for Scott Snyder's brain. But after this issue I will definitely be picking up a second.

That's a damned good point about the girl. I hadn't thought about how obvious she is.

I read through it and it's just too dark for me to read as a single-issue-monthly.

I think it's Daniel's style though, and I'd probably enjoy it in trade more.

My big beef with this title is it should definitely be on that top shelf next to Punisher Max and Mark Millar's Nemesis.

In my opinion, this title is not for kids and that's unfair to tease young Bat-Fans with this title. DC may have the rating on there, but most parents see a comic book and don't even think to look. But when they see it later, they'll yank the issue out of the kids hands, and if the mom is anything like the moms I knew growing up, they'll never drag that kid to the comic store again.


And good luck getting that comic-book app on your iPad after that discovery, kid. Your mom will never let that fly. LOL!



[Edited on 21/9/11 by Ult_Sm86]